I was checking on a few of my waxed cheeses this evening, a gouda and a cheddar and I noticed some multicolored mold growth under the wax on each of them. I cut the wax away, sliced the mold off, rubbed with vinegar and rewaxed.
I smelled the sliced off pieces from each cheese and they were strongly reminiscent of blue cheese. When I tasted them, both were tangy and creamy like blue cheese and not at all unpleasant. But, I've never made blue cheese before or anything with that mold strain.
Has anyone else tasted moldy pieces that have come off their cheese?
Did I just get a lucky contamination which was tasty whereas most are foul?
Harlan, I declare you as a true mad scientist who tests his creation on himself first. >:D
Yes, this happened to me to, and I didn't have any blue cheese around even. My wax was swollen to. Pennincillium Roqueforti is exist in soil and air anyway, they just need a place to settle where there is food and work :P
Haha, I'll definitely take that as a compliment!
At least it gave me an excuse to disturb the cheese a little earlier than I'd planned on.
That crafty roqueforti must have sensed that I enjoy a stinky cheese ;)
One of my other wheels had a smattering of rust colored, very superficial colonies on the surface and I couldn't stop thinking about the red-smear variety of cheese.
Has anyone ever tried purposefully establishing a helpful mold on the surface of any of their traditionally rind free cheeses?
Do you think it would penetrate to the interior without being innoculated in the liquid stage of the process?
Harlan....
I once had a provolone that contracted a blue mold in extreme quantities.
Although I do make blues from time to time, I did not ever have the provolone in the vicinity of any of my Stiltons.
Regardless, there is no doubt that the blue on my provolone was of the same strain that I use on my Stilton and I still don't know how it happened.
I will say that Provolone and p. roq. are not a good combination.
I ended up cutting away the blue mold and ate the provolone as a fresh cheese.
The taste was nice and the texture quite soft and creamy. All the while I couldn't forget that the cheese had once had blue mold on it and therefore could not really enjoy it.
I don't know why it bothered me so much since I absolutely love blue cheese. I think it was simply that there was NOT supposed to be blue mold on my provolone so it hit some sort of a nerve with me.
The kids loved it especially since I never told them that it was once a blue covered mess. My children will not even consider tasting a piece of Stilton so I figured this was information that was best kept from them.
The kids love my cheese, but they will not even try Stilton or Camembert. The Camembert they call "Bunny Cheese" (except for my eldest who calls it Camemburt). Her reasoning is that if they didn't want the "T" enunciated they should not have included it in the spelling.
She cracks me up.
Anyway, blue mold does seem to be a very aggressive. I was not aware that it exists in the wild but once it gets into your home it seems to seek out the proper environment to grow.
Dave
Many of my cheeses end up with blue mold growing on them...as my house was a cheese factory for the first 90 years of its existence, I would say that they probably produced a lot of blues here and the molds are still in the atmosphere.
That said, I have never purposely made a blue cheese or Stilton, though I have allowed a few of my cheddars to keep their blue bloom on them. They sure make tasty cheese!